Victorian Medicine

The nineteenth century saw a host of new medical innovations which are held
by many people today to be not only modern but essential such as greater sanitation,
anaesthesia, widespread inoculation, the first routine surgical operations,
the discovery of microbial infection or the acceptance of germ theory, and the
rise of a professional pragmatic tradition of medical care for all. All of these
innovations contributed to the increased life expectancies of Europeans by the
end of the century. Of course the century also saw many dubious movements such
as therapeutic nihilism and the often aggressive struggles for professional
and personal authority leading, for example, to the marginalization of so-called non-qualified practitioners such as midwives. — John van Wyhe

Further reading

Bynum, W. F. Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century
1994.